


Ever On and On

by UnderSantaBarbaraSkies



Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cancer, M/M, Season/Series 01, charlie & paige are the best big sisters, if you don't like sadness stay far away, oh yeah its a cancer story my friends, the graceland fam is strong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 13:10:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9236582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnderSantaBarbaraSkies/pseuds/UnderSantaBarbaraSkies
Summary: The scared nurse stutters, at first, to get the words out, and he takes it upon himself to stop her.“Just tell me what’s wrong.”She breathes very deeply before delivering the news, and watches as his head falls back on the mountain of pillows behind him. She stands and stares, thinking he might cry, but he lifts his head back up momentarily with a smile that is trying to be hopeful.“I’m glad to have a room with a window, then, since I’m going to be here for a while. It’s a nice view, don’t you think?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I found this while I was looking through my old stories - I haven't watched Graceland in about 2 years and I wrote this about that long ago. Thought I'd throw it out here, make you all suffer so I can get it out of my "Unfinished" folder :)  
> Comments appreciated! <3

It starts with a nosebleed that nobody thinks about while they’re waiting in line for churros. Jakes and Johnny argue about whether or not it is safe to tip his head back while Mike ignores them and holds his jacket sleeve to his nostril (all the napkins are dirty). Perhaps nobody thinks about it because it is the coldest day of the year thus far, and  _ everybody’s  _ skin is dry. Nosebleeds happen because of dry skin all the time. There’s no reason for any of them to think that it’s abnormal.

 

//

 

Mike gets a fever - a 104. He rests on the couch for three and a half days before insisting he is perfectly fine, pushing Charlie’s cold washcloth off his forehead. None of them find it worthwhile to argue. They do check his temperature a few days later, and it’s only gone down to a 99, but he tells them that he always runs hot anyways.

 

//

 

His throat becomes sore very gradually, and after it hits a high point the pain lingers there. It hurts to speak. They make great fun of his coughing fits at the time, and he mimics their laughing sardonically as he tosses back three more allergy pills. That’s all it is, of course - air pollution and spring pollen.

 

//

 

He starts pushing his food around on the plate and offering the leftovers to Johnny, who always takes them with a grin and doesn’t bother to ask if Mike is sure, if he won’t at least eat two bites. This becomes a regular thing, and the amount of leftovers Johnny scores from Mike’s plate becomes larger every day.

 

Briggs only questions it on pizza night - there’s Hawaiian, and Mike takes three pieces but takes exactly one bite off a single slice and offers the rest to Johnny’s eager hands.

 

“Just stressed out, Briggs, that’s all,” he says when questioned.

 

Briggs claps him on the back. “Alright, that’s okay. Just try to eat a little bit more, will ya? Johnny’s gonna start to get fat from all your leftovers.”

 

“I heard that!”

 

Mike smiles and rubs his shoulder.

 

//

 

The bruising starts, and under different circumstances, on any other day of the week, it might have been an actual warning sign.

 

Jakes is the last one downstairs that night, on the couch looking through a file he has no interest in but his supervisor says he should. He sighs and stands, trudging up the stairs with footsteps he knows will wake nobody, because he knows that nobody is yet asleep.

 

Mike’s door is open - an unusual enough occurrence for Jakes to look in as he passes, and stop.

 

“Nice bruises,” he says, gesturing at Mike’s purple-spotted back when the agent starts and turns at the unexpected voice. “Haven’t seen any like those since an assault case in 2005.”

 

Mike stutters, struggling to fling his undershirt off his arm and grab the tank top lain on his bed. 

 

“Oh, uh, no. No, no. That’s not what’s - nothing like that I just -” He sighs. “I don’t know where they keep coming from.”

 

“You don’t know where they keep coming from, huh?” Jakes asks, his face the very image of skepticism.

 

Mike chuckles and shrugs. 

 

“I guess it was from tackling Frond. Our runaway addict?” Jakes nods - he remembers talking about the case around the fire the other night. “He must have gotten a few good elbows in. Oh, and  _ here _ , I ran into a table.”

 

Jakes turns away, snickering and shaking his head.

 

“Typical Levi.”

 

He pulls the door shut behind him.

 

//

 

Mike wakes up early in the morning with a headache like nails being hammered into his skull, and he can say without the slightest bit of exaggeration that it’s probably the worst one  _ anybody  _ has had  _ ever _ .

 

“Paige!” he shouts, and honestly it is not the first name he thinks of, but the only one he knows will be awake before the sun is up.

 

He’s right, of course.

 

“What is is now, Mike?”

 

“Bring me an entire bottle of Aspirin. Please.” He hears her leave, and knows she is going downstairs. “And water!” he calls after her.

 

She brings it to him begrudgingly, saying it’s only because he looks like hell and had asked moderately politely, though she does not uncap either of the bottles. It takes him more time than he pleases to figure out the squeeze-and-twist lids.

 

He takes two an hour for the whole day, though he isn’t really keeping track and it must have been more because the little bottle is just about empty by the time the sun sets again.

 

He only makes himself get up once: to run to the bathroom across the hall in the middle of the night. Charlie follows when she hears him retching. She rubs his back more gently than he has thought her capable of. When he is done and his head lays exhausted and sweaty against the porcelain, she flushes for him and tucks him back underneath warm covers in his room.

 

“Charlie,” he coughs. “What about the blood? In the...”

 

She smiles at him grimly for a second before it falls from her face, and he imagines she thinks he can’t see her expression in the dark, because otherwise she wouldn’t try to scare him so.

 

“I’m sure that’s normal. After downing a bottle of Aspirin, anyways. Get some sleep, Mikey.”

 

She brushes his hair away from his damp forehead quickly before she leaves.

 

He rests on an uneasy stomach and an uneasy mind, and though he doesn’t throw anything else up that night, he still feels the urge to hug a toilet.

 

//

 

Briggs, Charlie, and Johnny find him on the kitchen floor, two weeks later, and this shouldn’t be what finally tips them off but it is.

 

He is unconscious, though still breathing, but with his head on its side in a mixture of vomit and blood and sweat. He is pale, paler than usual. Ghostly.

 

Briggs shakes his shoulders gently, then roughly, and Mike stiffens and flickers his eyes for only a second before falling limp again.

 

Charlie is picking up the phone to call an ambulance, Briggs knows this, but but he also knows there is no time.

 

“They have a lagging response time, Charlie, we have to take him ourselves.”

 

She only nods, and Briggs takes Mike into his arms.

 

“Get your badge. Johnny, stay here.”

 

He is already almost out the door by the time Johnny gets around to protesting, having come out of his useless state of shock.

 

“Briggs, you can’t expect me to just -”

 

“ _ Stay here _ . Tell Paige and Jakes what happened when they get back, then come and meet us at the hospital.”

 

“Which hospital?” he calls after Charlie and Briggs, leaning out the door as they load into the Jeep.

 

“I’ll text you, Johnny!” Charlie shouts back before speeding out of the driveway, both hands tight on the wheel, casting worried glances in the rearview mirror at Briggs and Mike in the backseat.

 

“We’re gonna get you there, don’t worry, Mikey-boy, don’t you worry… It’s gonna be okay… Stay with me, stay with me here, we’re gonna get you help…”

 

Briggs continues to make such promises into Mike’s t-shirt as he leans over the frail body in his lap.

 

Charlie floors the gas.

 

//

 

Within the hour Mike is checked in at Cedars-Sinai, and Briggs should be more happy about this than angry about the fact that they aren’t allowed to be with him, even when Charlie flashes her badge.

 

They are informed that he has been relocated to the ICU, and that he has not regained consciousness. Blood tests are being run, they are told, but will take at least twenty-four hours to be processed. In the meantime, they wait.

 

Johnny, Paige, and Jakes show up soon after. The five of them sit in a row of chairs in the waiting room, leaning on each other, crying or praying silently and in secret because it is the only way they know how.

 

//

 

Mike wakes up with tubes in his hands and one in his neck and an oxygen mask over his mouth and his arms are sore and everything hurts.

 

He doesn’t think he can move enough to reach the call button, so he waits. Not for so long, though, since once one nurse sees him awake, an entire staff is raining down on him with more needles and questions and medical jargon that he does not understand. He nods sometimes, but mostly shakes his head, and eventually they tell him that he’s going to be here for a while, and they’re going to take care of him to the best of their abilities.

 

This doesn’t sound too promising, he thinks, but it is the last thing he thinks before he sleeps again.

 

He does not dream.

 

//

 

The blood results come back. Everybody else has left but Briggs has stayed in his uncomfortable chair and nobody has tried to move him.

 

The nurse with the file talks at him a lot, and she sounds very scared, but he is more scared than her because the only words he understands, really, are  _ We’re sorry _ and  _ Leukemia _ and  _ We’ll try. _

 

“Have you told him yet?” Briggs asks her.

 

“No,” she replies. “We’re waiting until he’s stabilized.”

 

When he asks if Mike is allowed a visitor, he is told: “Not until he is moved to a room.” If he were in the right of mind, he would have known why, he wouldn’t have been so angry, he would have gone back to Graceland, but he is not in the right of mind at all so he stays, he texts Charlie to tell her this and other things, and she understands.

 

She comes to wait with him.

 

He is not surprised.

 

//

 

Once Mike is out of the ICU and they are finally allowed to see him, Briggs stands outside room number 607 and can’t make himself go through the goddamn door. He stands there in the hall staring at the door, then at Charlie, who is staring back at him with her hand on the doorknob. She slaps him on the arm, he clears his throat and shakes himself. They go in.

 

Mike turns his head slowly, and, when he sees them, puts on this grin that reminds Briggs of the Golden Retriever his mom had when he was a child.

 

“Hey, Mikey,” Charlie whispers.

 

She sits down on the side of his bed, keeping one hand on his arm in between the wires protruding from his skin, while her other hand smooths out every inch of his hair before settling in her lap.

 

“You scared us, kid.”

 

Mike tries to laugh, but can only cough. It sounds like he’s hacking up his lungs, and it looks like it hurts more than he wants them to think it does.

 

“Yeah, well, this place isn’t the most comforting either. Nobody will tell me anything.” He looks up at Briggs. “They say anything to you guys?”

 

Briggs shakes his head and crosses his arms, widens his stance, sniffs. It is a conscious decision to lie, one that he doesn’t think over very much and instantly regrets that he hasn’t. He sees Charlie clench her jaw because she knows what he is going to do.

 

“No. Just that you got moved from ICU up here.”

 

Mike’s eyes widen and he looks back and forth between both of them. “You’ve both been here this whole time?” Briggs and Charlie glance at each other, but say nothing. “Go home,  _ please _ . You both have cases you need to work on -”

 

“Mike,” Charlie interrupts, “if you think that I’m going to go back to Graceland now, while you’re -”

 

“ _ Please _ .”

 

He is begging. He has never begged. They both sigh heavily but relent.

 

Charlie kisses him on the forehead but Briggs can’t bear the thought of getting close enough to touch, not like this, not when he has just lied about something life-changing.

 

//

 

The scared nurse who had told Briggs is the one to deliver the same news to Mike. She is surprised, though, that he is far calmer than expected. He is hardly upset at all.

 

She stutters, at first, to get the words out, and he takes it upon himself to stop her.

 

“Just tell me what’s wrong.”

 

She breathes very deeply before delivering the news, and watches as his head falls back on the mountain of pillows behind him. She stands and stares, thinking he might cry, but he lifts his head back up momentarily with a smile that is so very fake but is trying to be hopeful.

 

“I’m glad to have a room with a window, then, since I’m going to be here for a while. It’s a nice view, don’t you think?”

 

//

 

In the days that follow, Mike crashes continually, though he does not consciously know this because he cannot find the strength to remain awake long enough to understand what is really happening to his body.

 

They transfer him back to the ICU, and he knows that he is being raced down the hallway on his bed; he knows that he is counting the fluorescent lights as they fly by overhead; he knows the taste of blood and bile on his tongue.

 

He does not know that he writhes on the cot and kicks at the doctors and screams when they hold his limbs down. He does not know that they are sticking him full of needles that make his entire body go numb. He does not know that he won’t stop screaming until a nurse tells him that  _ he will die _ if he doesn’t let them put the oxygen mask on.

 

//

 

The hematologist comes back, and makes a new treatment plan while Mike is at least half-awake, but still pumped full of drugs.

 

They’d had him on Gleevec, the doctor says, but due to his ‘work environment’ the growth of the cancer had accelerated and he’d crossed much faster than expected from stage two to stage three, and it is decided that they will be stepping up the timeline. They’re moving to something called Bosulif.

 

The hematologist stays only long enough to tell him this, and when he leaves the room is completely empty, and Mike has never felt more alone. But before long he’s rolling down a white hallway again, counting fluorescent lights, and when he wakes up he only has half as many tubes, he has shed the oxygen mask, and he is back in his room with a view.

 

There are flowers and get-well cards on every flat surface surrounding him - probably Paige and Johnny’s doing - and though his friends aren’t allowed to be there now, after visiting hours, the gifts make the room seem a little less lonely.

 

He’s glad he’s not allergic to lilies.

 

//

 

The Bosulif begins to reduce the number of abnormal cells, the doctors say, but he sheds eighteen pounds in six days and they decide it’s not worth it. It is a collective agreement that he start on chemotherapy.

 

//

 

Everybody makes the time to come visit him together one day, just a few days after his first treatment.

 

Jakes is the first to walk in, three pizzas and a breadstick box stacked in his arms; Paige and Charlie both have balloon strings gripped tightly in both hands, and let them go when they get through the door so his entire room looks like the house from  _ Up _ ; Briggs has two equally giant-sized bottles of Sierra Mist and root beer in each hand (“No booze in a hospital, can you believe that?”); Johnny has his arms loaded down with completely full and very old Christmas gift bags. He dumps these at Mike’s feet, then immediately begins to unload and show off everything inside the bags.

 

They’ve brought him candy, a Disney Princess coloring book, an entire 152 crayon pack (“They’re very good for stress coloring, believe me!”), a ukulele that he has no idea how to play, a lesson book on how to play the ukulele, the first two seasons of  _ Bob’s Burgers  _ on DVD, eight pairs of Sesame Street pajama pants, his entire collection of plain white tanks from his room, his favorite grey hoodie (“Now freshly washed and completely vomit-free!”), and thirteen packs of glow-in-the-dark stars.

 

Mike has to laugh at this.

 

“What are those for?”

 

Johnny scoops them all up into his arms and turns to deposit them on the bedside table, opening one and pulling out the sticky putty.

 

“I saw this in a movie when I was a kid - scientifically proven to make you feel better, a hundred percent!”

 

So the others sit around Mike in chairs, except for Briggs. He is the sits instead on Mike’s bed with his legs crossed, close to Mike’s boney feet and balancing his plate on Mike’s boney shins. Mike isn’t sure if Briggs is consciously aware that his fingers are drawing light and lazy circles onto Mike’s calves, but he doesn’t seem to notice so Mike pretends not to, too, and doesn’t ask him to stop.

 

They eat pizza and drink soda and tell all manner of stories from the past couple of crazy weeks while Johnny sticks plastic stars to the walls and ceiling. It’s like the firepit, in a way, but with less booze and the sounds of waves crashing, so really not like the firepit at all but close enough that it feels like home.

 

The nurses don’t bother him while everybody is there, and even let all the agents stay a while after visiting hours are over before ushering them all out and checking his vitals.

 

He smiles at his friends and waves weakly as they leave, and the nurses are so very proud that he can lift his arm on his own.

 

When the door shuts and the window blinds close and the last nurse flicks off the lights, the room around him glows like an entire galaxy from Johnny’s little plastic stars.

 

He laughs under his breath and falls asleep smiling.

 

//

 

The first symptom of the chemo that he can  _ see  _ \- he’s had plenty of the lightheadedness, the weakness, the seeping coldness - is his nails breaking. They turn brittle and brown in color, and he hates it, but it’s sort of a relief to know that this is a common side effect, and the chemo is at least doing  _ something  _ to his body. It might even actually be helping.

 

Charlie cuts them back to nubs so they don’t crack and plucks at his cuticles just for fun, then somehow manages to convince him to let her paint his nails.

 

She does them with a cherry red gel, and he has to admit they look pretty good, even this short.

 

“Hell yeah they do!” she says when he tells her this. “You’re welcome. My services can be called upon anytime.”

 

//

 

Briggs finally finds the nerve to show up on his own. He hasn’t visited by himself since Mike was first checked in, and the thought sends guilt coiling and churning around in his stomach.

 

With all the balloons and the flowers and the cards and the stars, even when they’re not glowing, room 607 must be the brightest room in the hospital.

 

This is the first thing that comes to his mind, and so it is the first thing he says to Mike, who smiles a little and laughs through his nose.

 

Briggs forgoes any of the chairs stacked in the corner, choosing to sit beside Mike’s legs instead. He can hardly look at him.

 

“How are you feelin’?” he asks, just as casually as he can manage.

 

Mike shrugs. “I’ve been better.” He pushes his half-finished breakfast away, the tray swinging to the other side of the bed. “Chemo’s not great, but nobody ever expects it to be, I guess.”

 

This Mike Warren sounds like a child to Briggs, like a scared eight-year-old trying to put up a brave front, and it’s so far from the Mike Warren he knows that it’s terrifying.

 

“Hey,” Briggs says, gently, taking Mike’s hand as though it’s made of glass. He notices the nails, but it’s the wrong time to ask. “You’re gonna pull through.  I know it, everybody knows it.”

 

He always has been good at convincing smiles.

 

“Thanks, Briggs.”

 

Mike squeezes his fingers once before pulling his hand back and folding it into his other one atop his stomach. Briggs clears his throat, then smiles when he sees the ukulele by the bed.

 

“You tried learning how to play it yet?” he asks, reaching for it.

 

“No. Who’s got the time?” Mike says it jokingly, and it makes Briggs laugh, but he strums an E chord anyway and watches as Mike’s eyebrows raise comically high. “Tell me you’re kidding. Or I’m dreaming.”

 

“Well,” Briggs smirks, “you are pretty drugged up…”

 

He strums, and he sings, and Mike can’t stay upright in his bed he’s laughing so hard. Briggs isn’t even offended in the slightest.

 

“ _ Hey there, Delilah, what’s it like in New York City? I’m a thousand miles away but girl, tonight you look so pretty…” _

 

A nurse opens the door when he is almost done with the song, and she stands there in the frame until he stops strumming, saying very haughtily, “Sir, if you don’t mind!”

 

When she leaves, all it takes is a glance between the two of them to fall to fits rib-aching of laughter.

 

“I’m very impressed, Agent Briggs,” Mike manages in between halting breaths.

 

“Well, I’m a man of many talents.”

 

Mike smiles at him, and it’s this crow’s feet, eyes shining, all teeth visible kind of smile that has Briggs thinking  _ God, I love this man _ and it only scares him for a second, but then it seems like the most natural thing in the world.

 

Briggs grins back at him, this kind of grin that makes Mike forget about any worries he has about anything, the kind of grin that makes him forget for a moment why he’s here and has him thinking  _ I’m so in love with this man _ and he’s only scared when Briggs stops grinning and everything floods back to him.

 

When Briggs finally has to leave, he rubs Mike’s shoulder affectionately then taps his nose. He is trying to make it a purely friendly gesture when it is clearly more than that. He sets the ukulele back where it had been, his hand lingering, and he leaves behind him a trail of fake smiles and small laughter when he makes towards the exit.

 

The door to room 607 shuts with a quiet _thud_ , and on one side a helpless man is leaning with his back against it, taking a deep breath, and on the other side a clueless man is lying in his bed smothering his face with a pillow and trying to get “Hey There, Delilah” out of his head.

 

//

 

Mike’s hair starts falling out.

 

It’s just a few strands at a time at first, enough that he doesn’t really notice it, but then the clumps start sticking to his fingers when he runs his hands through it, or on his pillow when he tosses his head at night.

 

He asks them to just shave it off, because really it’s just going to fall out anyways. He hates it immediately, and wears his jacket with the hood up at all times.

 

When Paige finds out, she brings him an entire box of hats of different sorts - some he knows are just to cheer him up, like the giant yellow squid hat - and after a whole hour of trying them all on, he eventually decides on a blue-and-white beanie that she says brings out his eyes.

 

When she leaves, she kisses his scalp through the knitted material with all the care in the world, and once he’s thanked her most sincerely and she’s left with a smile, he cries silently. When he’s done, he wipes his eyes with his sleeve, readjusts the hat, and resumes season one, episode fourteen of  _ Bob’s Burgers.  _

 

//

 

For a while, the chemo looks like it’s working.

 

Within just a month of starting, Mike can sit and stand and walk on his own, and the hospital allows him to return home for three days out of the week, so long as he keeps out of case work. This, they say, is not only the orders of his doctors, but also of the Bureau.

 

Everybody in the house tries as hard as they can to make sure that he is never in the house alone while he’s home, or that he is at least always in somebody’s line of sight to watch him.

 

He and Jakes compete at Fruit Ninja, which he is surprisingly good at. Charlie teaches him some tattoo designs, and finds his lack of artistic ability highly amusing. Paige props him up with pillows and continues to whip his ass at Mario Kart, but it’s far too addicting for him to give up at this point. Johnny brings him Hector’s and they talk over their food, and after a while Johnny tells him that he’s far more relaxed when he doesn’t have to work, that it’s a good thing and he likes this version of Mike better, and Mike honestly agrees.

 

Briggs, however, is never there.

 

Mike sees him in the mornings most days over breakfast, and sometimes in the evenings when he comes back from the field and says goodnight before retiring to his own room.

 

They try to speak to each other in silent looks and brief touches, in quick hello’s and goodbye’s. They try to cram whole conversations into these interactions, both of them do, and it hurts so much that Mike sometimes wishes he were back at the hospital, and as soon as he gets there he wishes Briggs were with him.

 

The crayons, he finds, are particularly good for stress like Jakes said, but not all that great for guilt or helplessness whatever the hell it is he’s feeling right now regarding the infuriating Paul Briggs.

 

//

 

Mike’s good health has reached a peak, it seems, and everybody is glad, but it’s a simple fact of the universe that what goes up must come back down again. After approximately a month and a half of being in-and-out of the hospital, when things have been looking up, everything they thought was good falls apart.

 

It’s a Sunday, on a Home Weekend, and Mike’s bedroom door is cracked and Briggs is finally going to talk to the kid - have an actual adult conversation about adult feelings and things, he tells himself this - but in the dim glow of the hallway’s light he can see Mike shivering in his bed and he can see the tell-tale glint of crimson rubbed in streaks from his nose across his cheeks and lips.

 

“Mike!”

 

“Everything hurts…”

 

He is only partially awake, and it’s like goddamn  déjà vu except for this time Briggs actually call the hospital and wait for a medical team.

 

They’re not allowed in the ambulance with him and they’re not allowed in his room - it’s after visiting hours, anyways, whether they’re FBI or not. Charlie restrains Briggs from throwing chairs.

 

The two of them wait again. Charlie paces while Briggs sits and she tries not to notice him crying, but eventually it becomes to much to ignore. She stands right in front him, their toes touching, and without looking up at her he pulls her to him and crushes his face into her stomach, his arms wrapping around her waist. She rubs his shoulders with one hand and runs the other through his sweat-drenched hair, dutifully ignoring the occasional silent, hiccupping sobs that rack his body and the soft tears dripping from his chin onto her shoes.

 

They stay like this for what is either hours or minutes before she feels him start to nod off, and both her arms fall around his shoulders, lying still.

 

“Hey, Paul?” she whispers down at his head, and feels him nod minutely against her stomach. “Do you love him? Answer me honestly.”

 

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and she thinks he might have fallen asleep, but then he nods a bit more firmly and mutters, “Yeah, I do.”

 

She brings her arm up to stroke his hair one more time. “That’s okay. That’s good.” She pauses, thinks, weighs her options, goes ahead and tells him. “I think he loves you, too.”

 

//

 

Once Mike wakes up again, the doctors tell Mike that there’s another procedure they can try - a bone marrow transplant at this point is looking like it might buy some time for them to work on more treatments, if they can find a proper match.

 

“How much time?” he asks.

 

The doctor sighs, looking at the floor because with all her training she can’t look at her patient, sitting up in his bed and looking as pale as the sheets, staring at her expectantly with hollow eyes.

 

“A month. Maybe two.”

 

“I don’t want it.”

 

“But it can help you! You could still -”

 

“It’s okay. I think it’s time, anyways. Can I make a request?” The doctor nods. “Under no circumstance are you to tell anybody from the Bureau about the other option. Put it in your records that you did everything you could to help me, but it wasn’t enough, etcetera etcetera, alright? And will you please personally go down to the waiting rooms and send any agents there home? Keep insisting, call security if you have to, even if they flash their badges. Tell them I’ll take visitors tomorrow.”

 

The doctor does as he asks, and security does have to be called, but at least Agents Briggs and Demarco don’t have to be dragged out the doors.

 

//

 

Mike calls his supervisor that same night.

 

“Agent Badillo. I’m afraid I can’t… complete the mission.”

 

The man is silent for a moment, then there is a laboured breath and he says, “I know, I heard. Mike, I’m so sorry.” What else are you supposed to say when a dying man calls you on the phone?

 

“It’s been a pleasure working with you, sir.” If Mike starts to choke up a little bit, if his voice cracks, neither of them mentions it.

 

“The same to you, Mike. You’re truly a legend… you’ll be missed.”

 

“Thank you, sir. I hope you end up finding what you’re looking for.”

 

“Goodbye, Mike. Thank you.”

 

The line clicks off, and in a government building on the opposite end of the United States, Juan Badillo lets his head fall against his desk, mourning the loss of his mission more than his agent, and he feels guilty about this enough to consider waiting a while before he starts making new plans for his investigation.

 

//

 

The nurse, Mike finds out, has incredibly steady hands when it comes to emergency situations, and he is so very thankful because when Briggs throws open the door and it slams against the wall, when he states very clearly in his Commander voice: “Mike, I have to tell you something,” the nurse doesn’t flinch.

 

She pushes the needle into his arm, draws the blood she needs in three seconds flat, extracts it and covers the pinprick with a DuckTales Band-Aid before he can even blink. She gives him a wink and a smile that wrinkles her eyes around the edges, then bustles off past an only slightly embarrassed-looking Briggs.

 

“She’s a tough one,” Mike says.

 

Briggs does not reply, only closes the door gently behind him, then crosses to the window.

 

“Nice view, isn’t it?”

 

Briggs still says nothing, just drops his head and shoulders and stares at his feet.

 

“Look, were you going to actually -”

 

“You’re killin’ me, kid,” Briggs interrupts, shaking his head and smiling a little.

 

“Funny;  _ I’m  _ killing  _ you _ -”

 

Things are probably happening at super-speed for Mike today, because before he can finish explaining what’s so terribly ironic with Briggs’ choice of words, the man is by his side, one leg curled under himself on the cot and the other hanging off the side.

 

A rough hand lingers gently on Mike’s cheek, then it slides around more firmly to grip the back of his neck, and Mike feels a beard scratching the side of his mouth before he even feels Briggs’ lips on his and good God, he can honestly say that nothing with the world was right before this moment.

 

The heart monitor beeping beside him is the only thing that keeps him from thinking this is Heaven, and yet he is still not completely sure.

 

It’s very short, far too short for either of their likings, but Briggs is nervous and he’s never been nervous around Mike before but everything is  _ different  _ now and what if it’s not a good different, what if this ruins everything and he wouldn’t dare say it out loud but Mike is  _ dying  _ and if this is the last chance he has than he’s at least got to go through with this, doesn’t he?

 

Mike lifts his own hand to curl around Briggs’ neck, his fingers splaying upwards to run the dark curls between them.

 

Their foreheads press against each other because Mike isn’t going to let him go anywhere and Briggs doesn’t feel like he could if he tried.

 

“I like your hat, by the way,” Briggs mutters.

 

His voice is low and gravelly enough that it sounds like a growl, and Mike smiles wide and  _ almost  _ has the willpower to laugh - perhaps if he weren’t so distracted.

 

“Is that what you came here to say? That you like my hat? Or was it the other thing? Because you didn’t really  _ say  _ anything if I recall…”

 

“Mike, oh my God,” is all Briggs can manage before they’re kissing again.

 

For a little while, everything feels like it could be okay.

 

//

 

The doctors estimate about two months more.

 

Mike decides he wants to make the most of it.

 

Briggs finds all the time he can to visit when it’s allowed, and Mike wonders how many cases he’s neglecting but allows himself to be selfish for once and hoard every second he can get of Briggs’ time, who doesn’t mind a bit.

 

It’s surprisingly easy to make the shift from coworkers or friends or whatever they were before to… whatever they are now. It’s a lot of careful kisses and mindless touches and talking that seems easier than before, somehow. Mike starts calling him ‘Paul’, and it tastes strange on his tongue for a few days, but soon he can’t even imagine going back to plain old ‘Briggs’.

 

The others come over for dinner most nights, or at least whoever isn’t working. Everybody knows how little time they have left, and, like Mike, they want to make the most of it because he is their family.

 

They are  _ happy _ .

 

But there is a time bomb hanging above Mike’s head that everybody is increasingly aware of. He looks paler on some days more than others, and he can’t bring himself to eat as much. He empties the contents of his stomach into a waste bin by his bed almost every night that the nurses know to check and take away before any visitors come. His head hurts too much to look at a bright TV screen for longer than a few minutes, and he’s glad he finished  _ Bob’s Burgers  _ a while ago.

 

Mike starts thinking in lasts.

 

For all he knows, this could be his last sunset, the last time he hears a bird singing, gets his blood drawn, hears Paul play the ukulele, the last time he colors in a Disney princess, the last time he kisses Paul, hears Charlie crack a joke, listens to Johnny talk about a bar, the last, the last, the last. When he starts thinking about what might be his last times seeing his friends, he shuts his eyes tight and pulls his hat over his head and tries to sleep it off.

 

Eventually, he knows that the time will come when he runs out of lasts and misses all the things he didn’t think about, so he tries to cherish every second.

 

It’s much harder than it sounds when you know you’re going to die.

 

//

 

He asks a nurse one morning if he would be allowed to have Briggs stay with him for the night. Just for the night, that’s all. He pulls out the puppy-dog eyes, and she laughs because she knows exactly what he’s doing but tells him she’ll allow it.

 

Briggs comes in that afternoon with pizza in his arms and two bottles of Sprecher honey root beer.

 

Mike laughs. “How on Earth did you manage that?”

 

Briggs just shrugs and twists the caps off, helping Mike sit up in his bed before handing him a bottle and a slice of Hawaiian.

 

“Don’t tell your nurses,” is all he answers, then launches into his most recent story about this case he’s working on.

 

Briggs finishes off the entire pizza and Mike can only barely manage to finish his one slice, but the root beer he drinks with delight.

 

Visiting hours draw to a close soon, and Mike is nearly asleep with his head on Briggs’ shoulder and their hands clasped together. He feels the other man shifting, getting ready to leave, so he clutches the hand in his tighter and draws Briggs back onto the pillows again.

 

“Stay,” he whispers. “I asked. It’s okay.”

 

Briggs sighs, just slightly, somewhere in between happy and sad, while Mike shifts onto his side, lying all the way down with his head sinking into the pillows. Briggs turns and lies down to face him.

 

“You sure?”

 

“Of course,” Mike replies. He pauses a beat, then says, “I’ve got to tell you something.”

 

“This sounds really familiar.”

 

“I was investigating you. When I came here. It was my assignment, and I didn’t -”

 

Briggs cups his face in his palm, feeling sweat on the sides of Mike’s pale face that he swipes away with the corner of the sheet.

 

“It’s okay. I know. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

 

“But how did you -”

 

“It’s okay. Go to sleep, Mikey.”

 

These are not all the answers Mike wants, but he is already on his way to sleep as it is. He dreams about an endless beach, stretching out under a golden sunset where the only two souls in existence are himself and this man at his side, a man with dark skin and beautiful black curls to match a scruffy beard, with lips that taste like Hawaiian pizza and honey root beer when they kiss.

 

//

 

Briggs leaves in the morning, before Mike is awake, and presses lingering lips to the line where hat and forehead meet.

 

“I love you, Mike.”

 

He takes the discarded pizza box from last night with him when he goes.

 

//

 

He comes back that same afternoon, a take-out bag from Mike’s favorite pie place in his left hand and a smile on his face.

 

He pushes open the door and starts to say, “Hey, Mike, look what I brought!” but stops before the first words even have the chance to leave his mouth.

 

Mike isn’t in his bed. The sheets are a different color and the blanket is folded back. There is only one pillow. The smell of sickness and pizza parties and  _ Mike  _ is but a dull scent under the fumes of sterile wipes. There is a cardboard box at the end of the bed, and peeking out of it he sees the neck of a ukulele. A nurse is there, whoe he doesn’t see for a moment, and she is standing on a chair with a scraper in her hand to take down the little glowing stars.

 

“Excuse me,” he says, voice wavering but mostly just confused. “Am I in the right room?”

 

The nurse startles and looks at him, stepping down from her chair. She recognizes him.

 

“Agent Briggs. Sir, I’m so, so sorry,” he hears her say, and he wants to not believe it but he knows it’s been coming for so long that he does.

 

He hurtles sideways towards the wall and feels himself drop the pie, and he remains right where he is while the nurse explains from a few feet away how he died peacefully, in his sleep, that is was a good way to go. His ears ring, and he doesn’t hear a word.

 

He feels himself push off the wall, take a few steps forward and grab the box, but he can’t make himself lift it off the bed, collapsing onto the mattress and feeling like the entire world has betrayed him. He is empty.

 

The nurse doesn’t ask him to move, just exits and leaves the door cracked open.

 

Charlie comes for him. She has been crying too, he thinks, but she is stronger than he is now and she drives him home. He does not let go of the box. It is the only thing he has.

 

//

 

Mike gets a full military funeral, with guns and soldiers and a folded flag that goes to his sister, who Briggs didn’t even know existed. When the chaplain asks if anybody would like to speak a few words, everybody looks at him but his feet won’t move so Paige pats his shoulder and goes up for him. Her speech is heart-wrenching, and everybody applauds at the end.

 

She is the one who stays with him when everybody else is gone and the casket is lowered into the ground, roses on top and everything. Before they start filling it with dirt, though, he asks them to wait. Wait for just a moment.

 

He crouches by the edge of this gaping hole in the ground and pulls this fuzzy, blue-and-white knitted beanie out of his jacket pocket. He stares at it for a minute, then leans down and tucks it under the roses tied down to the cherry-wood lid.

 

“Bye, Mike,” he says.

 

He stands back again and the workmen continue on where they left off.

 

Briggs and Paige stand there for at least an hour, even after the workmen have gone and the fresh grave is all filled in. The only begin to walk away when thunder cracks on a distant skyline.

 

“I miss him, Paige,” he admits in a voice smaller than she has ever heard before.

 

“I know,” she replies, and there are so many other things to say, but she knows he cannot bear to hear them now.

 

//

 

Lisa doesn’t have a grave he can go back to, one Briggs can visit and continue to say his goodbyes whenever he pleases. Mike does, and in some ways this makes his death hurt more than hers.

 

He goes on Tuesdays, no matter where is or what he is doing. He leaves a stakeout once, but it’s with Jakes and Jakes will always understand.

 

Every time he goes, he takes the ukulele. Sometimes he plays it and sometimes he doesn’t, but he always has it. His favorite still remains “Hey There, Delilah”, even if it’s also the most painful. It was Mike favorite, too.

 

_ “Hey there, Delilah, don’t you worry about the distance, I’m right there if you get lonely, give this song another listen, close your eyes…” _

 

So maybe it makes him a common sentimentalist. He doesn’t care. Mike would have loved it.

 

It feels like the world should stop turning. Like all the colors should go to black and white. But it doesn’t and they don’t, and he knows this and he moves forward. 

 

He moves forward in slow, small baby steps that start with him playing the ukulele every Tuesday at the grave of the man of he still loves. Around him all the colors light up a beautiful world that goes ever on and on, turning to the rhythm of a lonely man on his ukulele, playing for a past he knows and a future he has learned he cannot predict.

**Author's Note:**

> Told you it was fuckin sad.


End file.
